Just got done reading the exchange between you two. Beautifully stated, with very apt parallel examples. You have touched on the core concerns that many of us DRM-free supporters have. As I've said elsewhere, if someone else finds all this acceptable, then it's fine for them (though they are helping support a movement which is, at it's heart, anti-consumer). But this is most certainly not for me.

It's bad for my bank balance! :-)

That's a little harsh way of putting it I believe. I do agree that having an optional proper client and background services on the platform would make GOG more attractive for both the larger market of gamers out there and also developers, and that it would likely attract more of both to GOG. I also would agree that some gamers wont touch GOG because of the lack of a client and services. The important thing though is that GOG has decided that these are things that would enhance their platform offering to gamers and developers and they are now working hard on it so in a few months we will finally get to experience their first foray into this area. It will probably take a few rounds of bug fixing and tweaking things based on customer feedback and whatnot, but things are well under way and I personally have a lot of confidence in what they're trying to do.

Hopefully we will all get what we're looking for from it and it will draw more games and more gamers to the platform as a result.

Goin on a week now I've been killing myself over Inquisitor.

2 questions:
1) Is is party based or can you succeed with just one character?
2) If I need to turn to the settings down for my shit PC will it totally ruin the game?

Ah. Yeah I'm expecting the bailiffs around anytime now. That is probably literal too. :D

Hmmmm .... the auto update feature of steam has been criticized again and again and I like to decide for myself if I want to install the newest version of a game or not. And speaking of convenience. It is ONE additional Click to install the game and you can save and reinstall the game without starting the client again. There are countless issues speaking against the steam client and only a few which does not speak against this client. If one could buy every game on GOG - I would! One last thing: GOG does not forbid to install anything - they just don't offer it - yet.

The thing is though that games come out with bugs in them and it's practically impossible to avoid that in huge complex software no matter how much effort is taken - someone is going to encounter bugs and probably lots of them on a new release, so updates are necessary to both fix them and to avoid an influx of customer support requests. The fact is that auto-updates is a great way to ensure that all customers will automatically get updates by default without having to do anything and that most customers are likely to accept this default, and it probably benefits more customers than it harms or those who perceive it as harm. So auto-updates has a very strong argument to be the default setting for updates with games.

Having said that, Steam does allow you to change the setting on a game by game basis to not auto-update by default. The developer of each game can decide whether or not they are going to require you to have the latest update installed in the game in order to play online or at all, or let you play with an old version if they feel that is ok. There are good reasons that developers require the latest updates even though it can sometimes break mods or other things.

There are pros and cons no matter what is done and what the default is, but making sure people have the latest updates is the best way to ensure they have security fixes and fixes for problems to which the developer may have already fixed and it is easier for people who don't want auto-updates to know this and be technically savvy enough to turn it off, than for all users out there to not get updates and experience problems and not even know updates exist or how to get them and experience a worse situation and flood tech support email/phonelines/forums for problems that were fixed already in a patch that they would have got if they had updates turned on.

Auto-updates is the default because it is the best default to have for the entire customerbase as a whole, and individuals who disagree and make up the minority can easily change the setting and probably know how to do so also.

That's the justification for it right there. :)

You're simply proving my point further: you don't value automatic updates, so that's not a feature you're interested in. That's fine.

However, that doesn't mean other people aren't interested, and since both options have drawbacks, it is not possible to argue that one is better than the other (because it all depends on the value people assign to these things).

If you want to convince someone to buy a game from GOG instead of Steam, you need to give them a reason, and more importantly, you need to make sure they don't have a better reason to stay with Steam. DRM-free is a very good reason for many of us, but that doesn't mean it's a good reason for everyone else, or that it means enough for everyone.

(Also remember that DRM-free and convenience is just part of the equation. Steam has several other feature that some people genuinely like, and GOG hasn't - and vice versa.)

Here's the minimum effort needed to install a game on GOG, starting from the purchase complete screen:
Open account page.
Click game in list.
Click to download the installer (using the GOG.com downloader).
Wait for the download to finish and the installer to launch automatically (I'm assuming that option is on, since this leads to fewer clicks)
Accept EULA.
Click Install.
Wait.
Click Quit (or Launch Game).
When game updates, go back to step 1 (except this time you need to figure out if you need to download a patch or the complete installer)

Here's the same for Steam:
Click the big Install Games button.
Click next.
If there's a special EULA, click next again.
Wait for download to start.
Click finish.
Wait for download.
When game updates, do nothing. Steam updates it automatically.

The Steam process is much simpler to use, and that's why some people want to stick with it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Part 54
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Flash Deals #491 (Ends Thu, 26 Jun 2014 18:24:00 UTC)

La Mulana $2.99 ($14.99) [80% OFF]
IL-2 Sturmovik: 1946 $1.99 ($9.99) [80% OFF]

Flash Deals #492 (Ends Thu, 26 Jun 2014 19:00:00 UTC)

Dustforce $1.99 ($9.99) [80% OFF]
Rune Classic $1.99 ($9.99) [80% OFF]

Flash Deals #493 (Ends Thu, 26 Jun 2014 19:36:00 UTC)

Alan Wake $5.99 ($29.99) [80% OFF]
Capitalism Plus $1.49 ($5.99) [75% OFF]

Flash Deals #494 (Ends Thu, 26 Jun 2014 20:12:00 UTC)

Far Cry $2.49 ($9.99) [75% OFF]
Jazzpunk $7.49 ($14.99) [50% OFF]

Flash Deals #495 (Ends Thu, 26 Jun 2014 20:48:00 UTC)

Slender: The Arrival $2.49 ($9.99) [75% OFF]
Haegemonia Gold Edition $1.99 ($9.99) [80% OFF]

Flash Deals #496 (Ends Thu, 26 Jun 2014 21:24:00 UTC)

Memoria $3.99 ($19.99) [80% OFF]
Journey to the Center of the Earth $2.49 ($9.99) [75% OFF]

Flash Deals #497 (Ends Thu, 26 Jun 2014 22:00:00 UTC)

Ittle Dew $1.99 ($9.99) [80% OFF]
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell® $2.49 ($9.99) [75% OFF]

Flash Deals #498 (Ends Thu, 26 Jun 2014 22:36:00 UTC)

Brutal Legend $2.99 ($14.99) [80% OFF]
Another World: 20th Anniversary Edition $2.49 ($9.99) [75% OFF]

Flash Deals #499 (Ends Thu, 26 Jun 2014 23:12:00 UTC)

Botanicula $1.99 ($9.99) [80% OFF]
Incredipede $1.49 ($9.99) [85% OFF]

Flash Deals #500 (Ends Thu, 26 Jun 2014 23:48:00 UTC)

BloodRayne 2 $1.99 ($9.99) [80% OFF]
Anodyne $2.49 ($9.99) [75% OFF]

Sorry but 4 vs. 6 clicks is decidedly not much simpler. However on steam you can clickthrough in one go whereas with gog you have the download inbetween. We don't need to talk about updates, that's steams homerun. But gog will likely match steam on all of these points with the galaxy client in a month or two.

But don't forget that when you launch a game, often steam installs up to six software packages resulting in minutes of waiting. And when switching between two games it can happen you get this reinstallation each fu***** time.

Obviously you don't play multiplayer or just released games with lots of fun killing but (omerta, sword of the stars, ...)

Do you really like to manually apply patches at least once a week? Thats the current multiplayer reality with the popular RTS/MOBA titles. Mostly because either a game receives weekly patches or almost none at all - and the game withers away.

4 vs. 6 clicks is indeed incredibly minor, but like skeletonbow said, you cannot ignore updates, especially for new games, because they almost invariably end up getting patched - often repeatedly.

For classic games that aren't going to get patched - it's definitely no big deal, but it is of course just one factor in a large equation.

Definitely, and I am very much looking forward to it. :)

Ye Gods, every single time. It installs DirectX, again and again and again and...

You basically either get that and waste a minimal amount of time and disk space compared to what disks cost per GB these days, and every game has it's own known versions of things it knows it works with and which updating/uninstalling etc. some other piece of software isn't going to interfere with - as it is pretty much done in modern versions of Windows, or you have the Windows95 way of doing things where there is one system version of all that stuff and different games upgrade files other games are using causing the other games to break due to incompatibilities, or you uninstall something and it removes a library something else was sharing or all sorts of other problems that arise when there are shared files/libraries/etc. on the system that more than one thing can manipulate/install/upgrade/remove/muck with.

Microsoft and the rest of the industry got tired of all the incompatibility problems that led to and so as disks got larger they started installing things with private copies of everything where each game/app knows that it is dealing with a correct compatible version of the dependencies it has because it shipped and installed them right in its own private lair.

The overwhelming majority of consumers just want an "it works" experience and just don't care about things like this. Only power users and people who are technically savvy and experienced 80s/90s "greybeards" tend to even know the difference or care about such low level details, or things such as what version of DOSBox a game ships with and why doesn't it install one DOSBox and have all 300 games use it etc. 99% of consumers simply don't care and the 1% that do are technically skilled to modify their system on their own.

For the record, I am one of those 80s/90s greybeards and a power user and tech geek, and even I got tired of all that crap long ago and reaiized life is short and I don't care if every game installs 2GB of extra copies of DirectX Y and Z now, with 8 copies of DOSBOx per game because I just want to play the damn game and a 2TB hard disk costs $80 or less. If I run out of space I'll cash in some old beer bottles and buy a new hard disk and pat the game companies on the back for wasting space and making my life easier. :)

Yes but i really whish steam could tweak it so that this happens a) once per game & b) why not doing it at game install time too (e.g. just after the download)? now see there is even a possibility for gog galaxy to one up steam! :)

I don't think the comparison between Steam and GFWL is appropriate. Microsoft never put anywhere near the level of effort as a company into GFWL as Valve does with Steam. If they stop producing Windows, then you could make an argument.